Fans of live theater in Reno are in luck this season—from blockbuster Broadway tours to intimate, small-cast comedies, the Biggest Little City offers something for everyone who’s willing to go looking.
To aid your search, here’s a few highlights in the offing:
The University of Nevada, Reno’s sprightly Department of Theatre and Dance takes a darker tone with this semester’s musical, “Cabaret,”playing from Feb. 24 to March 5. As the Nazis rise to power in late 1920s Germany, the goings-on at a Berlin nightclub ominously foretell the coming decade’s horrors, with a cast of demanding roles at the musical’s heart.
“Stupid F***ing Bird,” a modern adaptation of Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull,” anchors the season with performances March 31 to April 9. The department’s website promisingly calls it “gutsy.”
Still without a theater design and technology specialist to replace retiree Mike Fernbach, the department will be staging both productions in the Redfield Studio Theatre, likely again without microphones or lights. Confronting this challenge yielded defiantly excellent results last semester: their continued efforts are worth notice.
Dance, meanwhile, takes the stage at the Lombardi Recreation Center April 19 to April 23. The Spring Dance Concert will offer a slate of brand new works from faculty and guest choreographers alike, promising range and variety in keeping with its eclectic fall counterpart.
At Brüka Theatre downtown, the highbrow ethical comedy “Lifespan of a Fact,” running Jan. 20 to Feb. 11, gives way to a heady take on “Hamlet” in “When Churchyards Yawn” March 10 to March 25. “Churchyards” follows all the characters in Hamlet’s extensive body count in purgatory.
Brüka ends the spring with a tragicomedy “The Beauty Queen of Lenane” from April 28 to May 20.
Reno Little Theater, in midtown, starts the year with a witty take on Sherlock Holmes in “Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery”. Rosie Calkin, a University of Nevada, Reno acting instructor, fronts the murder mystery as Holmes, running from Jan. 20 to Feb. 12.
For a more experimental choice, “Small Mouth Sounds,” running April 14 to April 30, gathers a cast of six in a silent wilderness retreat.
Finally, the Pioneer Center Downtown will be welcoming three touring Broadway productions this spring. The jukebox musical “Ain’t Too Proud”, playing Feb. 14 to Feb. 19, traces the journey of R&B group The Temptations through a catalog of their most popular songs. “Come From Away,” playing March 28 to April 2, recounts a true story of stranded flights having to land in a small Newfoundland town in the days following 9/11.
In what might be the most eagerly anticipated of the series, “Anastasia,” based on the beloved animated film, will treat the Pioneer Center stage May 16 to May 21 to the tale of a lost Russian princess uncovering her past.
Peregrine Hart can be reached at edrewes@nevada.unr.edu or on Twitter @pintofperegrine.
